Google is increasing its interest in India. It has been evident from its activities to invest more in the country. Recently, Google launched a new app called ‘Neighbourly’ for the locals of India and installed the 400th WiFi at railway stations. With all this in mind, Google has brought its CapitalG to invest in India too. CaptialG is a venture formerly known to be Google Capital which focuses on growth stage companies. It invests in various promising companies and has found one in India too. CaptialG has announced its investment in a micro-loan startup Aye Finance in India.
About Aye Finance
Aye Finance is one of a kind company which offers microloans to the small businesses. These small businesses are not covered under the bank and finance companies. Further, they do not qualify for the programs on Amazon and Flipkart hence have nowhere to go. But, Aye Finance works with these companies and provide loans to them to kick-start their business. The company is into its fourth year of existence and has already served loans of 700 crores for over 60,000 companies. The company covers 10 states through their 72 branches.
Sanjay Sharma, founder of Aye Finance said that “We have used data models and technologies to provide loans to the companies which are excluded by the finance companies. CapitalG investment will help us broaden our reach in increasing the micro business. Its analytics and business technology will help us grow and scale well”.
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Growth Of Aye Finance
Since its inception in 2014, Aye Finance is growing spontaneously. They have raised Rs. 240 crore of funding in the four rounds. Initially, they were funded by SAIF Partners and LGT for $10.5 million in 2016. In the latest round of Series C, CaptialG invested $21.5 million in Aye Finance. The latest funding has made the overall tally to around $30 million for Aye Finance.
On the investments, Sanjay said that “We are also using a significant amount of money to enhance our technology. We are trying to improve our technology on the cloud platform for integrating machine learning algorithms. Also, we want to increase our efficiency by using Artifical Intelligence”.
A few months back in December 2017, Google funded Dunzo, an Indian startup. It marked the first investment of the company in India. Officially, CapitalG marks its 6th investment in Indian companies. Before Aye Finance, CapitalG has invested in FreshWorks, CommonFloor, CarDekho, Practo, and CueMath.
India’s CapitalG head, Kaushik Anand said that “Since these are low-cost loans, the main challenge is to keep the cost of operation low. Through their technology, Aye Finance is able to do such. With the help of microloans, Aye Finance is able to reach the broader section of the Indian market. Since most of the companies are small scale and look for financial support, Aye Finance is best in the business currently”.
